Tag: Treasury

In a new segment for “The Daily Show,” the ever-charming Jessica Williams argues that not only is the effort to put a woman on the $10 bill half-assed and way too late, the real issue we should be preoccupied with is the gender pay gap.

Hey, did you hear that an American woman of historical import is slated to appear on the $10 bill? Is anyone investigating whether her ten-spot will be worth the same as the one with Alexander Hamilton on it—or would its actual value come in at, say, $7.70?

California cannot solve its budget problems by slashing services that have already been cut to the bone or raising sales taxes that hurt the poor far more than the rich. We are fighting over a pie that remains too small. The pie itself needs to be expanded—and it can be.

David Stockman, who served as Ronald Reagan’s budget director from 1981 to 1985, leveled some harsh criticism at his former boss as well as at President George W. Bush in an op-ed he penned about the dire state of the economy for The New York Times titled “Sundown in America.”

The Obama administration plans to give all U.S. intelligence agencies full access to a database that contains information on the financial activity of American citizens and others who bank in the country, a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters says.

A week before his inaugural, Obama says he won’t negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt limit. But the president’s strategy depends on there being enough sane voices left in the GOP to influence others. That’s far from clear.

So the official story here is that President Obama says he wants to cut the country’s corporate tax rate by seven percentage points, dropping it from 35 percent to 28 percent, which gives him a nice tax-related headline on a day when similar stories are cropping up about the competition.

There is one good reason to downgrade the United States’ credit rating, but S&P, whose credibility was already spent after the housing meltdown, gave a host of largely bogus explanations for its actions.

U.S. stocks sank almost 6 percent Monday, as investors disposed of risky assets and bought low-yielding but more secure Treasury bills and bonds, despite Standard & Poor’s recent downgrade of the U.S. government credit rating. (more)

Don’t mistake the claims of relative unimportance coming from the big shots on Wall Street before an audience of federal regulators over the past several months for some sort of newfound humility. (more)

Like a piece of Swiss cheese, U.S. sanction policy is riddled with holes, according to reports. A former Treasury official claims licenses to trade with blacklisted countries such as Iran have been doled out to the tune of billions of dollars in profits, all at the behest of lobbying groups.

Welcome to the brave new world of post-bailout capitalism. The Commerce Department announced Tuesday that corporate profits are at their highest level in U.S. history, and the Fed released minutes of an early November meeting in which officials predicted a stagnant economy and continued high unemployment.

Republicans pulled off a pretty neat trick, running up huge deficits and then making it their party’s big issue. Not to be outdone, the Democrats have managed to make $1.3 trillion look small. (continued)

AIG plans to start paying back the taxpayers some of the $182 billion it borrowed, but the plan involves trading the government’s preferred shares in the company for common stock, a move that ought to raise at least one eyebrow.

Joe Biden’s verbal gaffes are numerous, and so are his campaign violations. The 2008 Biden for President campaign committee owes the Treasury Department more than $219,000 for accepting excessive contributions and other infractions in his bid for the Democratic nomination.

In the face of the stereotypical image of Americans as free-spending consumers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told his international finance colleagues that G20 countries should not rely on American buyers for their products as they travel the road to economy recovery.

A Treasury Department spokesperson said that by performing community service as treasury secretary, Lloyd Blankfein will do less harm to the economy because he will have significantly less power than he had as chairman of Goldman.

Finally President Barack Obama has come to his senses on financial regulation. His endorsement of what he calls the “Volcker Rule” for once puts him squarely on the side of ordinary Americans as opposed to the banking bandits who have so thoroughly fleeced the public.

Who knew the Treasury Department had such deep pockets? Well, besides all of Wall Street, we can put the beleaguered duo that is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the list. The Treasury has obligingly removed the $400 billion cap previously assigned to the funding designated to save the two mortgage firms.

The president is so desperate for ways to fight unemployment he issued a call Thursday for “fresh perspectives and new ideas.” Well, Nancy Pelosi has some. The House speaker wants to spend some of that hot, hot TARP money on job creation. (continued)

It’s unsurprising to say the least: A Freedom of Information Act request has discovered that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in daily two-way communication with a small group of Wall Street CEOs—at Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs—while lawmakers like Rep. Xavier Becerra are forced to leave messages for him.

The New York Philharmonic was all set to fly into Cuba and jam, until the Treasury Department decided the patrons footing the bill couldn’t go. That’s pretty insulting to Cuba, considering that the same posse of musicians and rich people was cleared for a trip to North Korea.

Apparently Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wants more for his home than he paid for it—in this market. The “Daily Show’s” John Oliver asks, “How can the American people trust the policies of a man who can’t sell his house? ... Is it not like hiring a personal trainer who is morbidly obese?”

Some of the country’s major banks are prepared to pay back money they borrowed under the TARP program, but don’t get too excited. The initial repayment is expected to be a meager $50 billion, which Timothy Geithner wants to inject right back into other troubled banks.

GM’s restructuring plan will make the Treasury Department the majority owner of the company, according to Bloomberg. The administration reportedly intends to take as passive a role as possible and will not appoint anyone to the automaker’s board, thereby avoiding the danger that something competent might happen.

Has Timothy Geithner ever had lunch with a non-megamillionaire who has lost his job or home because of the banking meltdown? I ask that question after reading the list of the treasury secretary’s luncheon dates when he was head of the New York Federal Reserve, a list that the government was forced to provide in response to a lawsuit.

The Treasury Department has cut a deal with the United Auto Workers to send Chrysler into bankruptcy while protecting retiree benefits, The New York Times reports. Fiat would be in a more favorable position to take a cut of the company once it’s in bankruptcy. Chrysler’s equity stakeholders are shaping up as the big losers in all of this.

President Obama has said he doesn’t want public money going into a “black hole,” but his administration’s bank bailout looks more and more like an abyss of cosmic proportions. Not only are the bailed-out banks lending less than before, the Treasury Department appears to be engaging in creative math to obscure the gravity of the situation.

GM has until June 1 to cut a deal with its workers and bondholders, but the Treasury Department is requiring the automaker to prepare for bankruptcy just in case, according to The New York Times. Newly installed GM chief Fritz Henderson is more receptive to the possibility than his predecessor, but warns, “If we need to resort to bankruptcy, we have to do it quickly.”

Not surprisingly, Lawrence Summers is convinced that he deserved every penny of the $8 million that Wall Street firms paid him last year. And why shouldn’t he be cut in on the loot from the loopholes in the toxic derivatives market that he pushed into law when he was Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary?

The good news on the government’s “No Banker Left Behind” program is that, according to the special inspector general’s report on Tuesday, the total handout to date is still less than 3 trillion dollars. It’s only $2.98 trillion, to be precise, an amount six times greater than will be spent by federal, state and local governments this year on educating the 50 million American children in elementary and secondary schools.

Listening to the president’s critics, it would be easy to believe that Obama is responsible for the deficits, bailouts, bonuses, nationalized institutions and careening markets. It would be easy to believe but it’s entirely false.

President Obama personally conducted a tour of the White House for “60 Minutes” and in the Sunday broadcast defended his embattled treasury secretary, said sending more troops to Afghanistan was his toughest decision yet, and refused to grant a look at his wife’s vegetable garden. The president also took the opportunity to unload on Dick Cheney, who recently suggested we are less safe without torture.

Critics who argue that he is asking Congress to do too much are finding it far easier to talk about an overloaded system than to tell those without health insurance that they will have to wait a few more years.

The treasury secretary may indeed be the hardest-working man in Washington. But in order to survive, let alone succeed, he’s going to have to make a more convincing case that he’s part of the solution and not part of the problem.

After the top brass at AIG couldn’t be stopped from dishing out $165 million in bonuses to executives who didn’t exactly deserve gold-star treatment, Congress is attempting to recoup most of the money by slapping a 90 percent tax on such executive windfalls.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has developed a bad reputation in his short time on the job. He appears to have the fortitude of porridge and a love of banks and the bankers who bankrupt them. Despite calls for Geithner’s ouster over the AIG bonus blunder, the president says he has “complete confidence” in his top economist.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has sent Congress an explanation of his plan to deal with the AIG bonus fiasco. Essentially, Treasury will dock the $165 million in bonuses from AIG’s next bailout payment. Here’s a question: If AIG can do without that $165 million, why were we giving it to the company in the first place?